Cyberdog

Cyberdog is an OpenDoc-based suite of internet applications, including email and news readers, a web browser and address book management components. Used together they produce a single suite similar to those offered by larger "monolithic" applications such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. However the use of OpenDoc allows these components to be reused and embedded in other documents by the user. For instance, a "live" web page could be embedded in a presentation program.

Use of OpenDoc also led to a huge memory footprint, often larger than both the web browser and mail applications in other suites. Moreover the system was terribly slow, although the reasons for this are not obvious. Additionally the use of OpenDoc meant that documents saved from the system were unable to be viewed in traditional applications -- at least those that didn't support the Bento format, which is practically all of them. Generally CyberDog was barely usable on common machines, and quickly grew outdated as web standards evolved. New releases were not forthcoming, and use slowly dwindled away.

It's not entirely clear what Apple's intentions for CyberDog were. It was at one time positioned as a replacement for AOCE which had failed in the market, but for this role it had many of the same problems that caused the failure in the first place. Other times Apple referred to it simply as a demonstration of OpenDoc, a line that became more common as time went on. Through the 1990s Apple was "gun shy" of upsetting 3rd party developers by introducing software of their own, and this likely had a part to play in the story as well.

Nor is it entirely clear why one would want to use OpenDoc as the basis for an internet suite. OpenDoc's raison d'être was its ability to construct multi-part documents using individual editors; however this is something HTML was already providing in a fashion that proved to be much more enduring and cost effective than OpenDoc.

Cyberdog is also the name of a famous trance clothing shop in Camden, London -- see Cyberdog, Camden.

External links

• Cyberdog
• Cyberdog Installation